


Until the Next Life

by wanderingsouls



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, everyone else is mentioned briefly, they die a lot but it isnt graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 12:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsouls/pseuds/wanderingsouls
Summary: Lance and Keith keep waking up with nightmares that create a puzzle they never understand until, one day, they meet. Each time they are reborn the cycle continues until one of them dies because of their love. All because the gods choose to punish them for it.





	Until the Next Life

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Time After Time](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/384023) by kiilea. 



> THIS IS COMPLETELY INSPIRE FROM KIILEA'S ART PIECE WHICH I HAVE A LINK TO IN THE DESCRIPTION PLEASE CHECK IT OUT AND THEIR OTHER WORKS.

****

They were stubborn, and the gods hated them for it.

Each time they were reborn it was the same story, the same tragedy. Each time it was pieces of a puzzle that made no sense. The pieces pilling and pilling in odd piles until some fit into place. Each nightmare leaving them confused and aching. Wondering what memory, past, or future they were imagining. They were aware of something, something sad and painful that would come but never knew what it was, when it would happen, or why. The puzzle never making sense until they saw each other.

It’s always different how they meet. Sometimes its silly, sometimes its weird, sometimes its dangerous. It’s always something different from the last.

In one life, Keith had been a singer on the radio and Lance had told him he had the voice of an angel. In one life Lance was a writer and after every story he would tell Keith which part was secretly for him, for every poem Lance would say why.

In every life, they are happy, but only for a brief sunset.

They know it will come one day, when the other is ripped away from their hold. When they can no longer kiss their lips, stare into the other’s eyes, their smile a fading memory, and days filled with silence. They know that one day, the other will die a painful death that will rip every string from their hearts. It doesn’t matter how many times it happens, every time the gods look down on them in disgust, each time a part of them is destroyed and never fixed.

It’s always the same ending. One of them always dies.

At first, they thought it alternated. In one life Keith would die, then Lance, then Keith, and so on. But the gods didn’t care who died or how, just as long as they suffered. For one millennia, Keith watched a thousand different ways Lance could be ripped from him.

They were stubborn and that’s why they were being punished. The gods were trying to teach them a lesson they never wanted to learn. Maybe that’s why it keeps getting worse.

Over the passing of time, they’ve made friends who have tried to help them break the curse.

First, in the twenties, there had been girl of high class who told them of an old witch who lived where man had not destroyed. But Keith had died from an alley fight he never meant to walk into. There had been the old man, a gypsy, in the forties, who claimed he could help all rid themselves of their ghosts. But a murder happened within the area and Lance was arrested as the murderer. Then, the girl and boy who had told them about voodoo practices in the states. The girl with glasses, the boy with the headband, the man with one arm, them, them, them. They had all tried to help but none had done a thing.

But they were still stubborn.

Each time they died, and their souls were presented to the gods for judging, they never relented. Each time they would be asked the same question, have you learned your lesson? And each time, they would hiss through clenched teeth, _no_. Each time red reached for blue, but their souls were sent into a new life, a new era for them to exist and not fall in love. But each time they had nightmares of a life they never lived. Each time they collected pieces of a puzzle that warned heartache. Each time they found each other and fell in love; hating and loving every bit of it.

 

***                                                              *                                                          ***

 

It was bound to happen. Either someone would have become too suspicious of their bond or their bodies would eventually give up to the prying hands of sickness.

This time, it was Lance.

At first, they had brushed it off as a simple cold. They worked on a farm they had bought together, so a cold wasn’t uncommon and they didn’t have strong medicine that are used later. But Lance kept getting worse despite all his rest, all the soup, and all the water and tea. It got so bad that Lance stopped tending the animals, instead doing the occasional clean up of the house when he had the energy.

It had gone on for about three weeks.

Keith had been ready to take Lance to a doctor, but Lance convinced him not too. They didn’t want to rouse suspicion or unwanted attention.

“It’s just a really bad cold, gorgeous.” Lance had told him. So, they continued to treat it as a bad cold. A _really_ bad cold. That is, until Lance collapsed on his first day back to work.

Lance had decided to start simple and tend to the garden, he had recovered, but they had agreed Lance shouldn’t push it. So, he went to the garden and pulled the weeds and watered the plants. When that was done, he went to tend to the animals. But when he reached the chicken pen, he erupted in a fit of coughs; falling to the ground. And in that moment, Lance knew he was going to die.

It wasn’t a cold. Hell, it wasn’t even a sickness. It was just the gods. The stupid, fucking, gods who thought they could make their lives miserable from the moment they realized it was love.

“Keith!” He gasped through. The horses screamed in fear, the chickens clucking in concern, and Blue bolting to find Keith.

“Keith!” Lance couldn’t stand anymore, he was too tired. His legs buckled, and he fell painfully on his hip. The cough was gone but his body was so cold, his head so light, and his eyes so heavy. In the distance he heard his name and feet pounding the damp earth. He closed his eyes, waiting.

“Lance, no, baby, open your eyes!” Keith slapped Lance’s cheeks repeatedly until eyelids flooded open to show tired, fading, brown eyes. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his lips.

“Lance, I need you to stay awake.” Keith was rubbing his cheeks, wiping the stray tears and the smudge of dirt away. Lance’s breathing was uneven and ragged. Keith snaked his arms underneath Lance and lifted him until his head and shoulders rested on Keith’s thighs. Keith’s arms wrapped around Lance, rubbing his shoulder and running a hand through soft, brown hair.

“Take it easy, I got you. You’re going to be alright.” Keith told him. Lance smiled, raising a hand to the one in his hair and intertwining their fingers together.

“Keith, I don’t feel good.” A puff of warm air hits Lance as Keith huffs a laugh that holds no humor.

“Yeah, you’re sick. I need to take you back home, so you can rest.” Lance shakes his head, his smile faltering a fraction.

“That’s not it.” Keith’s hands tighten around Lance as the eyes Lance always stared into gloss over.

“ _No_ , I’m taking you home and you’re going to sleep. I’ll make you soup and you’ll drink tea and you’ll get better.” Lance raised a tired hand up to Keith’s face when the first tear fell.

“We were wrong, you weren’t better. It just felt like it. We’ll go home and curl up by the fire with all the blankets. I’ll sing to you if you want.” Lance’s fingers uncurl themselves and wipe the tears from Keith’s face. He’s quiet, his smile now gone because he’s _so_ tired.

He’s so tired of constantly dying to repeat. He’s so tired of waking up one night because he had a nightmare of a life he never lived. He’s tired of being confused of a puzzle he never opened. He’s tired of hating. He’s tired of love that never lasts until their skin is wrinkled, their hair is gray, their teeth are crooked, and two graves sharing the same last name and the words “loving husband” written in stone for all to see. He’s tired of not knowing who it is this time. He’s tired and he can’t feel the cold anymore.

“I hope we’ll never meet again.” Lance whispers and he hates how Keith’s breath hitches and how he can hear the strings breaking. Lance hates how he knows Keith understands and deep down, hopes for the same.

But even that doesn’t come true and the circle continues.

 

***                                                    *                                                    ***

 

They’re in front of the gods again. Their souls dancing up and down; red and blue shining bright in front of eyes that have judged them for forever.

“Have you learned your lesson?” They ask.

This time, Lance and Keith don’t say anything. Do they want to go through everything, over and over again? Do they had the strength, the heart, the will to defy the gods for an eternity? They’re _so_ tired. They _can’t_. Not anymore.

It’s quiet.

The gods smile. They’ve won.

“We’re glad you two finally- “

“No.” They whisper and its so broken, so hateful, so…stubborn.

It shocks the gods and in that brief moment, red and blue take the chance and reach for each other. They meet somewhere in the middle of Nowhere and make purple and its wonderful. But then it’s over and Keith wakes up in the middle of the night alone in a shed wondering why he dreamed a thousand lives. Lance looking at his tattered books of the nineteen twenties and forties and wondering why they make him sick. The nightmares aren’t constant and begin to fade over time and its only when they’re in space, among friends and foes do they realize what it all means.

It’s only when Lance and Keith realize, for some reason, the curse is over. They are no longer being judged by the gods for who they are. It's only then, does Lance get down on one knee and say,

“I swear I’ll get you a ring when I find one, but I’ve been waiting to marry you since I heard you sing. So, Keith Kogane, will you please marry me?”

“Fuck yeah.”


End file.
